I spend WAY too much time moving my artboard around. I'd love to see another FreeHand feature included in AI where after you select an object you can zoom in on that object and have it centered on the screen when you hit Command +. When you do that now, the selected item is off the screen somewhere and you have to move it back to where it's visible again. Drives me crazy!

1. Please make an "PASTE INTO" function in Illustrator, and please make it so, that the stroke or fill doesn't disappear like it does when you make a clipping mask. OR alternatively....improve the clipping mask function (make some clipping mask settings) so it becomes optional if you want the stroke/fill to disappear.

2. Shortcuts: Please make the "File" menu similar to the "File" menu in InDesign....so that "Export" gets the shortcut "Ctrl+E" and the "Place" function gets the shortcut "Ctrl+D". It's a bit annoying that I have to assign the shortcuts myself, when it could be standard like it is in InDesign.

3. Make it more logical and easy to make a transparent gradient. Like in the Photoshop "layer style-menu". It's so easy to make gradients in Photoshop, from solid to solid color or from solid color to nothing, it should be just as easy in Illustrator.

I am wondering if anyone interested in a plugin I created to allow clip mask to work like painting paths with color swatches.

That is, you create a library consisting of images (jpg files) you brought into illustrator. Then, you select one or more paths and click an image swatch, the path will be clipped. I also solve all the problems one might encounter when selecting, editting clipped paths. Also, I created a set of, what I called AlphaFinder, similar to pathfinder, but it works with clipped paths as well as regular unclipped paths. My plugin has many other powerful features to edit clipping mask. Attach image show the image library I mention above.

I hope to raise enough interests to start making it available, commercially.

I also created a plugin to do 2D animation inside of Adobe Ilustrator. You can view an example of this movie I created using that plugin here:

I have not sense that Illustrator is listening to my requests. There is plenty of room for productivity improvements in AI, I've stated them numerous times, with no change. New features are nice, but when an old feature breaks, with a new release, I'm stuck in the old version. Example:

Editing gradients that use global colors is broken in AICS6. I can no longer drag-n-drop a global color onto a slider, to update the gradient. This is a critical production workflow for me, that cancels my migration to CS6. When will this be fixed?

Gradient blend editing, in general, should be improved:

Allow multiple slider selection, so section of a gradient can be moved in one step.

I find snap to guides does not work consistently as well, when I drag an anchor over another anchor, and the objects are zoomed out, smart guides shows that it is overlapping the other anchor by reading änchor" or path", but when you zoom into that anchor it is not actually on the other one, it misses it.

problem with scribble is it loops the scribbles, I would like a straight hatch or slightly varied hatch as single straight lines, as an effect to save on anchors, perhaps as an option in the scribble dialog.

shape builder allows you to press ALT to clip off open ends of paths that stick out from closed areas created by paths, say you draw 4 paths, they are overlapping to create a square shape, the outer ends are open, you use shape builder with alt to delete those open ends, I`d like to see an option on the path finder to just delete all open outside and inside ends in one hit.

I dont want to fill the shape and use divide (which deletes all open paths), as this creates a real joined closed shapes.

a gradient brush where you can run it along 2 fill shapes that are either overlapped or touching, and where the shapes touch there is a blend or gradient between the 2 colours created. And only to the thickness of the brush diameter.

I`d like an option in the warp dialog box to "keep smooth points smooth", or allow only smooth formations.

This would be very helpful !

This would save me forever going through with the convert anchor point tool after to re-convert many points back to smooth points.

I`d also like to see when selecting the warp tool, the intensity, details, simplify, and brush angle on the options bar .

At the moment you can adjust brush shape from circle to oval, with ALT, but not angle of oval. (would be supreme)

Pressing ALT+CTRL would be a good remedy for this

SHAPE BUILDER.

at the moment pressing ALT allows you to chop off any open ends hanging out of closed shape areas (created by a set of open paths), great, but i`d love a button on the options bar at the top when using this tool to automatically delete all overhanging open ends coming off closed areas. I dont want to use pathfinder/ divide because this gets rid of all open paths, which is not the point of what I want to do. I want to kep those paths open that I sketched out, but delete all overhanging paths inside and outside the closed areas automatically without having to go through and find each one afterward with the shape builder using alt...

here`s a sample of all the loose ends I`d like to have automatically deleted.but the remaining closed area would not actually become a closed path. just like with the shape builder using ALT.

If you select the last line (road) you made, and use rotate (press r on the keyboard) and hold down shift and alt on the keyboard you are able to make a copy at 90 degrees angle to the selected line :-)tip: before making the copy, place the mark for rotating at the endpoint of your previous line (road)

Yeah, Mordy. If you have any clout with Adobe, see if they can fix AICS 6 so I can use it on a daily basis. I bought into "Adobe Creative Cloud" and lucky for me, I already had version CS5, or my work would be grossly impaired. I cannot drag global colors on gradient sliders. Without that feature, editing gradients is at least 3 times the work and I do that constantly in my workflow.

It's things like this that cause me to wonder which direction AI is headed. I'm very disappointed and feel I have wasted my money on "Creative Cloud".

Illustrator would be really great if it was more compatible with Photoshop- if I create an object in photoshop with transparency, I should be able to bring that onto Illustrator and keep that transparency instead of having lots of white space. Adding this transparency feature in illustrator would make work so much fast and easier.

I had the same problem when using Smart Guide. I hoped that Adobe will fix the issues, but the problem is not technical, but application. What I mean is many tools including those created by third-party company add interface that talk to Smart Guide. Changing Smart Guide architecture means every plug-ins ever created must be modified as well. This is the reason I had to write my own plug-in to use in placed of SmartGuide.

If you like to check it out, visit www.amazoncanvas.com, and please give your comment and or suggestion so I can update it to your need.

The product is called ArtBlue which is a suite of path editor and snapping engine.

Can we add a negative check box to PREVENT the package function (thanks for that, BTW) from creating a copy of the file? I need to keep each file's latest version controlled, and adding copies adds to confusion (if another designer edits the outside-the-package version)!

If you download 1.0, just uninstall it using windows uninstaller (Add Remove Program under Control Panel).

Then download 1.1 and install it.

Version 1.1

The following issues were fixed in this version: 1. ArtBlue did not ignore objects in hidden or locked layers. 2. Alt-Shift click a segment did not add alternate segments to selection. 3. Alt handle or point selection did not work if object are of the same path ordering. 4. ArtEdit ignored raster images and worked only with placed images. 5. When a paragraph has an empty text line, ArtTrack get stucked. Some minor enhancements were added in this version.

By the way, I am looking for someone with experience on marketing software, please contact me if you are interested.